Opinion
144
February 11, 2003.
Order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Paul Victor, J.), entered on or about September 20, 2001, which granted defendants' motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint, unanimously affirmed, without costs.
Dylan Braverman, for plaintiffs-appellants.
Dona B. Morris, for defendants-respondents.
Before: Mazzarelli, J.P., Andrias, Saxe, Buckley, Friedman, JJ.
Defendants concede that the motion court's rationale for dismissal was erroneous, but offer alternative arguments for affirmance of the ordered dismissal, which are properly before us and which we address. Social Services Law § 419 provides that "the removal or keeping of a child pursuant to [that] title" is cloaked in "immunity from any liability, civil or criminal," and that the municipality is presumed to have acted in good faith unless there was "willful misconduct or gross negligence" (see Van Emrik v. Chemung County Dept. of Social Servs., 220 A.D.2d 952, 953, lv dismissed 88 N.Y.2d 874). That immunity applies at bar (see Lara v. City of New York, 187 Misc.2d 882). Plaintiff has not raised a question of fact as to willful misconduct or gross negligence by non-speculative evidence (see Kubik v. New York State Dept. of Social Servs., 244 A.D.2d 606, 609; see also Van Emrik, 220 A.D.2d at 953).
THIS CONSTITUTES THE DECISION AND ORDER OF THE SUPREME COURT, APPELLATE DIVISION, FIRST DEPARTMENT.